


His Greatest Lament

by Shimmershot



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Past Relationship(s), Rose has a few regrets, Rose is in control of this story, Rose is opening up to someone who isn't Oleana, Secret Relationship, Spike Town | Spikemuth (Pokemon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:42:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24750268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shimmershot/pseuds/Shimmershot
Summary: Once at the top of life, now he spends his days half bored on a less than stellar cot in a jail cell.  Which isn't as bad as he might have expected. It is a change, however, and it might be boring compared to his previous lifestyle... but he has a bunk mate to chat with.or(Former) Chairman Rose has a more than one secret skeleton in his closet, but there's a very big one he very rarely acknowledges... one that cuts to his soul.  And of course, it just so happened that his over eager bunk mate asked just the right question at just the right time in their developing dynamic that Rose takes a leap of faith and tells a small story.
Relationships: Past Chairman Rose/Other
Kudos: 1





	His Greatest Lament

Jail was a cacophony of sounds and personalities and a strange sense of community. He never would have expected, years ago, that he’d ever be “incarcerated”, but now? It wasn’t the end-all he’d once envisioned. It was simply a new chapter in his ever growing personal novel.

And he was an honest sort – with himself and others, no matter how the masses believed him to be a liar and a cheat – so he could freely admit that this new experience was opening his eyes more and more every passing day. Things he never would have thought twice about.. things he over-looked on a daily basis… things he’d outright ignored. All of it was taken in with a new refresh.

He had wanted to save the future of their society without even truly paying attention to what was here and now. Relationships forsaken and torn apart… lives had nearly been lost. All of that, he had silently acknowledged and accepted, and of course he regretted it now once it had all become so much more real than a hypothesis and series of charts… His own activist mind had been his own downfall for not hearing reason.

He needed to be here. Everything… all of that… had come to this, and he was able to see the good behind the “bad” as the case presented itself. Just another lesson in his life, and he recognized and welcomed it.

Still…

It wasn’t an easy transition. He was once a multi-millionaire with a five star business and reputable charities. He’d had the respect of not only the Galar Region, but the World. He had been the face of Galar, turning it into the strongest economical powerhouse in the world. Now? His name was muddied; Galar in a State of Emergency with monumental shifts through the League; and everything Rose had worked to the top for was in shambles.

Rose was no stranger to being humble and at the very rocky bottom… but it was a difficult memory to face in the reality of the present.

Jail gave him time he hadn’t had much of. The first several hours sitting in Intake had been oddly normal. The hours following that, alone in a Watch Cell, had felt extremely hollow by comparison. There had been nothing to do. No paperwork, no phone calls, no meetings… he couldn’t simply leave to inspect his company’s production. No planning, no conferences… not even Oleana, his loyal PA whom had been in his employ for close to twenty years.

The gifted time allowed him to think. Not of his company… not of the fate of Galar… not even the incredible events including three legendary pokemon, a child – now crowned Champion – and the demise of his legacy. At first, that all equated to very little actual thinking… he’d simply sat on his cot and stared at the wall, wondering if he were in a state of shock or loss.

Days passed, and he was moved to a different cell – this one with a bunk mate. It took some time to recognize the scruffy blond gentleman as a former business owner that had been caught in a major black market scheme. It’d been the insider trading that had brought the man down and everything else only helped to tack on more sentencing.

The man – Davis, as he’d been reminded numerous times already, much to the other’s chagrin – was actually a breath of fresh air for Rose. The man talked incessantly; he was certain he knew more about the other’s personal life that he’d ever known of Oleana’s. And perhaps that could be an annoyance to some. He himself likely wouldn’t have listened so raptly in even the extremely recent past. But… the Rose of today found it soothing. The chatter filled the silent void that his life had suddenly become, and he found himself even going so far as to share a few things of his own. Why he’d “done” it. How he’d clawed his way up the social ladder with more gritty details than the press had ever been allowed to know. Even a few pointless corporate tips that neither of them would likely ever need when they were finally allowed out of here.

As days bled into weeks and then an entire month, he felt a strange camaraderie with the other man he’d never even experienced with Oleana.

Which was put to the test as Davis grew bold enough to ask about the one thing Rose wished he hadn’t; about his family. So caught off guard, he’d simply quirked a brow for clarification as he tried to keep his throat from going entirely dry. “You know, mate… did ya ever see anyone? Got a missus? I uh, everyone knows about your history, but I remember you were a highlight for a while when you actually had a girlfriend. What happened there? I mean… my wife hardly sends letters, but I get word from my kids sometimes. You got anyone you’re expectin’ mail from?”

“I don’t,” Rose replied with a frown. He’d hoped to forget that entire fiasco, truthfully, no matter that it was a catalyst in his life. That others still recalled the incident was somewhat… frustrating. “Oleana, maybe. Though I suppose they’d intercept anything we try to send each other, if we’re even allowed contact. I believe I remember something about a Restraining Order, but I’ll have to ask my Public Defender for clarification.”

Davis winced, “That’s… damn. That’s rough. I honestly kinda hoped that girlfriend would write you here and there. Contact with the outside is unbelievably nice as time goes on.”

“Alison and I weren’t dating,” Rose quipped before he could catch himself. He sighed, feeling dark eyes staring incredulous at him again. “That was a business relationship for a potential merger over seas in Kalos. She was pretty and her mind was perfect in a business sense… but I...” he paused. Did he truly want to divulge his biggest, darkest secret? Only Oleana had ever known his regret, and she’d always kept him on track when it all got away from him. Davis had shared his own dark secrets. Perhaps not all of them, and nothing close to the level Rose’s own resided… but… fair is fair, he supposed. 

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. Davis did the same, recognizing the subtle cues that meant “serious talk”, as had happened over the last month. “I’d appreciate this staying here, Davis. This is… this could still cause a media uproar, given the details, and I don’t wish to unduly thrust that upon the affected individuals. It wouldn’t be fair.” Arceus above know how crappy a hand he’d dealt them already.

Davis nodded solemnly, face drawn in curious concern. “You have my word, mate. Rose. I don’t talk to anyone in the yard anyway, as you know. I won’t say anything.”

… Good enough. Rose’s lips twitched into a sad, ironic half smile filled with every single one of his regrets. “Thank you.” He glanced out through the open bars, leaved forward and lowered his voice. “That bout with Alison was a turning point in my life. Not a good one,” he sighed, eyes drifting shut. “I had never intended to marry or have children. I believed I’d create a legacy far stronger than that of blood and family. I didn’t believe in close bonds, after all. They’d never proven to be of worth. However, I am human and am prone to mistakes.”

Rose winced at his word choice, and ignored that Davis had taken to listening like a child at bed time. “My relationship with Alison was widely publicized and entirely false. I hadn’t even realized anyone could see romantic interest in our meetings. What I shared – how I acted with her was extremely vague and empty compared to what I felt with Carmella.”

He could still envision her beauty… waves of brown down her back, vibrant green eyes that seemed to light his iced ones on fire… she hadn’t been curvy – she’d been almost considered “rail thin” - but she’d been deceivingly toned. She had muscle, and she had a chest once you realized clothing did her the injustice of hiding it away… Rose coughed at the dopey smile his compatriot was sporting, realizing he had in fact revealed all of that without meaning to. He missed Oleana’s quick words of interruption in times like this.

Alas, she wasn’t here and he couldn’t take the words and bury them again. This likewise excommunicated businessman now knew full well the diamond he’d found in the rough. “She was a cocktail waitress in the old casino Pompeii,” he continued. “At that time of my life I was extremely busy following Professor Magnolia’s Wishing Star findings. I was quite wrapped up in all of the tests run on the dispelled energy and the affects the local pokemon were subject to.” Magnolia had contacted him about the potential sustainable energy and he’d been a heavy part of the project ever following, funding and theorizing and more. “There were times even I had to step away. Business points like timelines and expectations don’t often mesh well with science and experiments.”

“Pompeii was in Spikemuth,” Davis said rather unnecessarily. Casinos in general had once been common, but in Galar, only Spikemuth played host to gambling houses. “I used to frequent the High Limit Tables quite often. Nice place.” Though it seemed it had taken him a bit of thought to recall it. “There were three in Spikemuth if I remember… Pompeii, Glitz and… uh. The really shady one that turned out too be owned by that foreign gang leader. I don’t… remember its name.”

“Ah… the Kantonian mafia, Team Rocket. Never visited that one myself. Its name was something the likes of “Gold Mine Run” or something equally ostentatious.” He’d stopped in only once, smelled the Rattata and never looked back.”

Davis leered, “Too hooked on Pompeii’s pretty brunette, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised. She really appealed to you.” The man dramatically laid his chin on his crossed hands, fluttering his eyes in a “Go on” sort of way and Rose bit back another sigh. There was not sense stopping. Davis would pester.

“Carmella was an addiction, I suppose.” Not something he’d ever want anyone to hear, but… times had changed drastically in a short amount of time. “She quickly became my weakness; terrifying as that is. I couldn’t stop, and I didn’t want to. It was a distraction – the only one – I allowed for. I...” he frowned further, clenching his hand as a guilty stab raced through his chest. Even now, he had so much trouble admitting… “She was a waitress to help her through school. I respected her tenacity, knowing as I do how hard it is to reach a goal when you have no financial support. Top of her class, and she made time for me.”

Taking the plunge with this confession was exceedingly difficult. His chest felt congested and the words didn’t want to come. He’d only ever verbally acknowledged this once, and it seemed some how simpler back then than now. “She… got pregnant,” he whispered. Across from him, Davis’ eyes went wide, but Rose continued without noticing. “I was… hurt. But I… cared for her. My actions didn’t properly convey my… affection. And my mind was in the wrong place.”

“She cheated?” Davis asked incredulous, “On you?”

The regret surged forward to mingle with the guilt in his heart. “That’s the horrible part: she never cheated on me. I didn’t want to know how to be in a committed relationship of that magnitude… and I didn’t want to acknowledge my own feelings, much less those of another. We had a son, and regretfully, I never tried hard enough to connect with him. I believed my own denial; that there was no possible way I could have fathered a child. I refused to acknowledge him in any form of official capacity.”

Oh he remembered when his son had called him “da’” the first time. It’d been a sleep filled slip of a title as Carmella had scooped him up for bed. It’d been sweet, but Rose had gone cold in fear and uncertainty about having the boy view him in such a way.

Davis was a very easy man to read. Jail had taken any poker face right out of him, leaving his reaction plain as the son. “You… have a son?” he asked with that same pitched note of his last question.

Nodding solemnly, he replied with a sad “I do.” He glanced down at the floor, hands twining together before him. “I, in a sense, ran away from fatherhood in the barest sense of the word. I was still in a “relationship” with Carmella, but I avoided situations that put Piers and myself in the same place. I supported Carmella with general child support – discreetly, to avoid attention from the media… I did see him grow, but from a removed frame of mind I sorely regret.”

He’d missed Piers’ first steps and words… never knew any play dates with other kids… had no idea what he’d been like academically. “I believe Carmella was under the impression it was for safety. She knew I had enemies in the competitive business world; enemies that could in theory try to get to me through them. She genuinely thought the best of me, and I wish I’d afforded her the same courtesy. But I… didn’t. Not for more years to come, and even then, it was far too late.”

He met the other’s eyes with a soft smile of painful pride. “Our daughter was born five years later. There was no way for me to shirk the responsibility for that one. We’d both acknowledged a bad decision. We knew what would likely happen. I screwed my head on straighter and made an effort to be there. Those were… the best times. Happiness was a concept I finally, truly, understood.”

Davis winced, catching the unspoken foreshadow. “Until that cover about ya dating Alison...” the man finished, rubbing his dark eyes.

Wincing once again himself, he nodded. “I regret my silence to Carmella… about my… love for her. For our children. She was such a good person, she may have seen right through the claims had I simply told her, even once, that I was in love. That I would never leave her. Fate saw it happen differently. I had no idea anyone could believe Alison and I to be involved… not until my next available chance to come home. And it was...”

There had been so many things wrong that he should have picked up on sooner. “I should have confronted her on what was wrong the moment I entered our home. I didn’t know what I know now, but I knew the distress upon entering. It wasn’t the dirty clothes in piles all over… not the dirty dishes climbing out of the sink… not even the wafting scent I couldn’t place and didn’t appreciate.” He could still smell it if he thought about it… 

“Our son had been nervous, watching Carmella as if she were an Electrode set to go off. And I could easily see the stress in him, the tense set in his young shoulders. He was normally so very easy and mild, settling into a story or hum as he drew pictures and played with his little sister. And it confused me, and I wanted to ignore it. I didn’t want to acknowledge the problem right in front of me when I had no idea what its origin was. A part of me was still selfishly tied in the belief that it wasn’t my problem.”

The shattering porcelain, splashing hot water sounding like a whip-crack in the silence. Piers had been mortified, not even reacting to the burn he received in that moment as his pale eyes had swung to his mother in fear. Rose, to this day, wasn’t sure if the boy had heard his unhelpful “That was my favorite” - still stuck in a sarcastic banter from his time with the Professor. And Rose wished he could believe he would have gone to check the injury once his brain caught up…

He hadn’t had the chance. Carmella had snapped at Piers, cursing him in the strangest manner Rose had ever heard for something so trivial as a mug. And she didn’t acknowledge the burns either, sending the boy to the room he shared with his sister with a waspish reminder to not wake his sister.

What a moot order, and how extremely unfair. “We fought. She was so angry about my alleged choosing another woman. She accused me of forsaking her and the kids. I wish I could recall every word she’d said… they were all things I should have taken very seriously. But I was far too lost in the moment to realize her fears and her breaking point. We were never the same after that. I continued to try being there, but she more or less rejected me, and I drifted away. It’s… haunted me for years.”

Rose wasn’t an emotional sort. Not with tears. But damn, he wished he hadn’t walked away. That he’d claimed his kids publicly. He would have been informed when it’d happened. “I learned only a few short years ago that my beloved Carmella took her own life when our daughter turned five. No one thought to inform me. They had no reason to. It… hurts, to know what my mistakes have led to. It took...” he took a shaky breath, mentally shrugging. He’d already compromised his son’s identity at this point. “It took seeing my son enter the League for me to try reaching out to her… Instead, I found a Death Certificate and an article on suicide using her photo. Pain, regret, sorrow.”

Silence, probably gifted by Davis as he went over the mountain of information Rose had just unloaded on him. Rose managed, barely, to stop the well of tears that desperately wanted out. But he couldn’t look the other in the eye. Too many regrets and realizations, really. This man now knew things that could emotionally cripple him. Things that could harm Piers and Marnie. Things that he hadn’t even divulged to Oleana. 

“Wow, mate… I always assumed there was a reason Piers and Spikemuth didn’t like ya… I always wondered about the obvious rebellion that kid took with ya...” Davis whistled low. “I never would have pegged him as your son. Though… under all of that hair and makeup, I guess there’s a resemblance.” He huffed, sounding emotional himself. “That was a bloody roller coaster, Rose. I can’t express how any o’ that made me feel. Tragic.”

Tragedy. Rose supposed that was an apt description. “I’m not prone to speaking about any of it. I’m aware of my mistakes. I’ve dug my own grave, and here I am. I can only take from the lessons afforded to me and move on. I’ll never have a relationship with Piers. He’s gone through far too much at my meddling to ever see eye to eye with me. I know his struggles, more or less, to this point. Not even 20, and he’s a figurehead, reluctant as it is. I do wish I could apologize. Thank him for everything he’s sacrificed for his sister. Spikemuth fell to ruin during my tenure as Chairman. It wasn’t easy on them.”

“You can… you know. He may not read it. Marnie may not even read it. But who knows? Maybe all of that piss and vinegar he exudes is hiding a boy that wants the acknowledgment of his father. Maybe a simple “Sorry I wasn’t there” would go a little toward easing a little girl’s need for a mum that weren’t there either. Course, ya may piss ‘em off. Piers is Hell to reckon with as a Dark Specialist, and he’s got that traditional Spikemuth flare. But you’ll never know if’n you don’t try.”

Davis looked away, his eyes suspiciously blurry. “My wife probably won’t ever forgive my transgressions. I apologized for everything that hurt her, but it’ll always be there. Still, she hasn’t divorced me. She reads my letters, I assume, and writes me about once a year. My kids accepted the apology though, and every one I’ve made since. I’m happy they’re so forgiving. Bein’ here means I can’t spend time with them… I only get a pocket sized school photo once a year. But I wouldn’t trade it. My pride over them… never. I’d sell everything I cherished before incarceration before ever spurning them.” He eyed Rose carefully. “You had your reasons. You acknowledge that they weren’t very good. Can only go up from here.”

Go… up. Climb up from the pits of rock bottom. He couldn’t do that if he didn’t try. Dead ends happened, and these particular pathways would hurt if they turned into such, but at least he’d know. No more wallowing in self pity. It was time to pick himself up and face what he’d ignored. Because right now, that seemed the only available option.

**Author's Note:**

> When I played Sword the first time and met Marnie, I had the immediate thought that Rose was her father. And that didn't change when I met Piers. It took some time before I played through Shield, and it all came back to me that same thought process. It's not a common thought in the fandom, apparently, which is too bad really. Rose's character was so single-minded, that I feel it to be a tragic connection given Spikemuth's condition and Piers' obvious reactions to anything League related.
> 
> I've got a story mostly together featuring Marnie and Piers. I've got to fill in a few gaps... but it and this will be set in the same 'verse.
> 
> Also, let me know about mistakes found. This isn't beta'd, and I have a tendency to miss my own typos and what have ya.


End file.
